Exclusive: Obsidian breaks 3-year silence to spill the secrets of Avowed, its next big RPG
For just a moment, Avowed looks like any other fantasy RPG—swords and shields, shiny armor and helmets with those funny little nose guards. Then the dual-wielded flintlock pistols show up. And the fungus-infected bear. And the Willy Wonka-ass mushrooms. Obsidian was once the RPG studio that played in other developers' sandboxes, but with Avowed it's getting to paint the world it created for Pillars of Eternity on a far bigger canvas—one in which you're, well, kind of the asshole.
Okay okay, that's not quite fair—you don't have to be an asshole. But you do have to be an outsider, Avowed director Carrie Patel told me in an exclusive interview ahead of Avowed's reveal on Sunday.
As the game begins, your character arrives in a remote corner of the world of Eora called the Living Lands as an envoy of the Aedyr Empire, where you've been sent to investigate a mysterious plague. «Not everybody in the Living Lands is super thrilled to have an imperial presence in this far-flung land,» she said. «So adventure ensues.»
It's been a long three years since Avowed first appeared during a Microsoft livestream, promising a first-person RPG from Obsidian Entertainment. Since then Obsidian has released Grounded, an ant-scale survival game, and Pentiment, a 16th century murder mystery. Both were hits, but it's about damn time for another RPG, and Avowed's trailer says 2024 is the year. Its first appearance was just CG hinting at a game, but this time we've seen the real thing, and Obsidian was ready to talk about it.
CEO Feargus Urquhart told me that in scope Avowed is more akin to Obsidian's past RPGs like The Outer Worlds in size than it is a sprawling open world a la Skyrim, though that was actually Obsidian's initial pitch. When the
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